Tyler Sash: Why The Former Football Player’s Death Matters
By Joe Russo
We need to remember our favorite players are putting their lives on the line. Situations like former Iowa Hawkeye and New York Giants safety Tyler Sash can occur with other players.
It is not often that this site veers away from Cleveland sports or from the Ohio State Buckeyes. In extraordinary circumstances, there comes a topic or an event that should garner the attention of Cleveland sports fans outside of the North Coast. Tyler Sash, died of an accidental overdose of pain killers in September 2015. Sash was only 27 years old.
Sash’s family donated his brain to be studied for CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. This is a degenerative brain disease often found in athletes of contact sport with a history of repeated head traumas. After suffering multiple concussions as a professional and three prior to being drafted, Tyler Sash had in fact repeatedly suffered head trauma that more than likely cause the CTE to develop.
In fact, it was reported in the release of the study of Sash’s brain on Tuesday that the CTE was advanced far more than what is seen in a person of Sash’s age. Symptoms of CTE include memory loss, impaired judgment, depression, and dementia.
It is hard to believe such symptoms would be associated with someone as young as Tyler Sash. However, like hall of famers Junior Seau and Mike Webster before him, CTE was as lethal as any cancer or heart condition, all without any known course of treatment.
Unlike Seau or Webster, Tyler Sash was not even 30 years old and he had much of his life ahead of him. It is no wonder former San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland walked away after just one season in the NFL.
What does this have to do with us as Cleveland Browns fans? Why bring this up on a site devoted to the “Sixth City”? Think of all of the players that suffered concussions on the Browns roster this year. Andrew Hawkins himself suffered multiple and Joe Haden was lost for the season with one. We saw Josh Cribbs once get laid out by Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison in years past and Josh McCown left the 2015 season opener just one drive in.
Some of us played the game. I myself played through high school and am not sure if I ever suffered a concussion. I do know that I have been hit in the head hard as a tight end while blocking or getting piled up run blocking. I know I have seen teammates and opponents alike get hit so hard they cannot get up, and once even saw a young man being taken off of the field in an ambulance. It is a terrible sight.
While we watch every Sunday and cheer for big hits and big moments, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that football is itself a violent game. We get upset about the new emphasis on hitting defenseless receivers or leading with the helmet on hits.
These rules are not meant to “soften” the game. They are meant to try, in as small as steps as they may be, to make the game safer than it was for Mike Webster and Junior Seau, and more recently Tyler Sash.
The NFL can still do more and the movie Concussion did not help the image of the NFL, as it brought to light their alleged hiding of facts and known data on head injuries. It is no secret that the NFL knew more than they were leading on and that veterans are crippled by the willingness of the league to look the other way. It was not just NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, but all of the leaders that came before him that kept the data under wraps “for the sake of the game”.
None of that matters to the families of Webster, Seau, Sash, or the unknown number of former players with CTE that are not around to do anything about it. The NFL’s rules about hits to the head are not going away. As fans, that might hurt and we should be just fine with it.
Next: Barnidge Is Going To The Pro Bowl
Whatever helps prevent more 27-year-old former players from dying is worth every ounce of frustration as a fan.